Wireless communication services, such as voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), continue to increase in popularity, leading to increasing numbers of users requesting these services. Mobile phone devices access the services via a cellular network. A mobile device connects to the wireless cellular network via a particular base station, such as an evolved Node B (eNB), when the mobile phone device is within a geographic area associated with the particular base station. The particular base station may be associated with a particular active mobile gateway, such as a serving gateway (SGW), of the cellular network. The particular active mobile gateway may serve the mobile device by establishing a session for the mobile device to access one of the services. The particular active mobile gateway can fail during the session (e.g., due to being overloaded), and the session may be lost. When the mobile device determines that the particular active mobile gateway failed, the mobile device needs to reestablish a connection to access one of the services by using a particular standby mobile gateway, associated with the particular base station, instead of the particular active mobile gateway. As a result, the user's experience may suffer due to the interruption caused by the failure of the particular active mobile gateway, and by having to wait an extended period of time, such as over 30 seconds, until the connection is reestablished by the mobile device.